Why Chelsea are early supporters of the new Club World Cup

This time next year, FIFA expects to launch the new expanded version of the Club World Cup in the United States, with 32 teams from around the globe competing for supremacy.

Chelsea, having completed a second consecutive season without Champions League football, will be back among the elite of the club game.

FIFA’s decision to introduce a new competition, which promises 63 matches over a month, to a stretch of the crowded football calendar normally reserved for major international tournaments or summer holidays for players has been controversial. FIFPro and the World Leagues Association have threatened legal action, accusing the governing body of not showing enough consideration for player welfare and the organisation of domestic leagues.

But none of those concerns are shared in the corridors of power at Stamford Bridge. Chelsea can be considered enthusiastic early supporters of the Club World Cup, and are factoring it into their decision-making on many levels — not least the move to mutually part with Mauricio Pochettino this summer and hire Enzo Maresca as head coach on a five-year contract.

Chelsea were looking at what lies ahead as effectively a double season, with two domestic campaigns bookending the Club World Cup. They wanted to ensure they had a long-term coach in place who fit within their structure and culture to minimise disruption ahead of the tournament. Maresca ticks those boxes to a degree they concluded that Pochettino simply did not.

The most urgent priority for Maresca is to lead Chelsea back into the Champions League by securing a top-four finish in the Premier League in 2024-25. But the new Club World Cup is viewed internally alongside the FA Cup, Carabao Cup and Europa Conference League as a serious trophy for him and his squad to target.

The Club World Cup had a part to play in Maresca’s arrival (Glyn Kirk/AFP via Getty Images)

Considerable thought is also being put into how Chelsea’s squad might be best constructed to deal with as many as 75 or 80 competitive matches across all competitions over the next 12 months. There are also considerations on how pre-season preparations for the 2025-26 campaign might need to be modified in light of Club World Cup exertions.

But on the whole, Chelsea do not believe the summer of 2025 will prove any more challenging to navigate than this one, in which a significant number of their players have been called up to the European Championship, Copa America and Olympics. In fact, one arguable benefit of the Club World Cup is that clubs can more directly manage the workload and training schedules of their players than they can influence the approach of national teams.

For all the difficulties it poses, the expanded Club World Cup presents what all elite clubs are perennially searching for: a potentially lucrative opportunity for revenue growth. Chelsea’s qualification for the inaugural edition of the competition, secured by winning the Champions League in 2020-21, is already having a positive impact on their “enterprise value” according to respected data and analytics platform Football Benchmark.

FIFA is yet to confirm what money will be on offer for Club World Cup participants and the eventual winner as negotiations drag on with potential broadcast and sponsorship partners. Even so, the eventual figures are expected to be meaningful even for a club with Chelsea’s revenue, which broke the £500million ($635m) barrier for the first time in their 2022-23 accounts.

As detailed in The Athletic earlier this month, FIFA still has several significant hurdles to overcome to get the expanded Club World Cup off the ground. Chief among them are finalising broadcast deals that balance guaranteed income with TV visibility for a new competition, and sponsorship agreements on a level that ensures they can make participating financially worthwhile for some of Europe’s leading clubs.

But there is no doubt at Chelsea that FIFA will make president Gianni Infantino’s big idea a reality next summer, and that it will grow over time into a prized fixture in the football calendar every four years.

The new format for the tournament is Infantino’s idea (Francois Nel/Getty Images)

Real Madrid, despite the public comments of coach Carlo Ancelotti, will participate in 2025. So too will Manchester City, Bayern Munich, Paris Saint-Germain, Borussia Dortmund, Inter Milan, Juventus, Atletico Madrid, Porto, Benfica and Red Bull Salzburg.

The last two years have underlined that Chelsea are no longer guaranteed to compete in such rarefied European company. But they could also face the Copa Libertadores holders or the Champions League winners from North America, Asia or Africa. It is the truly global nature of the tournament that distinguishes it and could make it resonate particularly with the huge numbers of elite European club supporters who live overseas.

Chelsea view their participation in the Club World Cup as a valuable opportunity to engage with and further grow their sizeable worldwide fanbase. America is a helpful choice of host in that sense — offering a wide range of large, modern stadiums surrounded by hotels and facilities attractive to travelling supporters.

There is also the prospect of FIFA partnering with a global streaming platform, making tournament matches readily available to watch on smartphones and tablets anywhere in the world.

Most important of all, it is a grand international stage that Chelsea can safely incorporate into their plans. The same cannot be said for the Champions League, though it is hoped that their exile from Europe’s elite club competition is nearing its end.

(Top photo: Francois Nel/Getty Images)